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Find out more about Kenneth: Kenneth Wesley has been playing video games for a long time, enough to start writing about it and go for his associate's degree. He's done some game testing for two major companies, wrote for two college papers, and really loves playing video games. |
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Recently, Rolling Stone has put up a list of what they consider the 50 best video games based on Rock & Roll. Now keep in mind that Rolling stone doesn't review video games on regularly basis and didnt even consider this list until Guitar Hero and Rock Band became popular. Which, on one hand is great for the industry on the whole when a game can have a giant hold on the popluar culture.
However, the choices seem to be about music simulators than actual music itself. Samba de Amigo, one of the better Dreamcast games made the list, while Jet Grind Radio, a great DC game known for its great music, was ignored. That may seem like a slight oversight, but many of the games on the list seem like they made it on a technicality alone.
Part of the attraction of Guitar Hero/Rock Band is the great music in the games and the great gameplay as well. For that reason, Revolution X should be stricken from the list. And something like Donkey Konga should take its place-it actually has some great rhythm gameplay.
And someone who has bought and kept video games due to its soundtrack, how did Final Fantasy get ignored? How did any RPG get ignored? One big ommission is Wipeout, which was one of the first video games to actually use real music from real artists. In fact, video games have came a long way since the eary days of bleeps and bloops. Hell, the Super Mario Bros. theme is one of the biggest selling ringtones in the world. There are great video games that have had incredible music and soundtracks and it sucks that they aren't represented on this list.
Now, as mentioned earlier, there shouldnt be a lot of weight given to this list because any article that puts '50 Cent: Bulletproof' and the word 'Best' in the same area has got to be consider a crap list.
Sorry for ranting, but to anyone who reads this, I'd like to know which games you'd consider for your own music list. Shadow of the Colossus rings to my mind? What about you?